


The Intern

by Ashling



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-03-24 10:46:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13809570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: An overworked college professor applies for the Wakanda Science Outreach Internship on a whim. M'Baku does not approve.





	1. The Email

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imperatorkhaleesi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperatorkhaleesi/gifts).



> This is the first canon/reader thing I've ever written, so let me know how it went! Also, this is for imperatorkhaleesi because I promised her an Eve Moneypenny fic and then didn't even get the first chapter out. Sorry about that.

"Why do we even do this, again?" you say.

You are sitting on the sofa, laptop on your lap, feet up on a coffee table covered in papers and empty wrappers and bottles, in your tiny flat. Next to you, your roommate Erica squats facing the opposite direction, laptop delicately balanced on the sofa back as you both scroll through job sites. You're trying to blast SZA but the sound quality of your phone isn't exactly the best. Whatever.

Erica puts on her Professor Voice. "To envision a better future for yourself, even if it's mostly bullshit, is a form of self-care, probably. Pass the wine. No, the white wine. Thanks." She takes a swig straight from the bottle. "Also, unlike seeing a movie, or going out, or whatever, it costs nothing. So there's that. To Fantasy Fridays!"

"To Fantasy Fridays."

You clink bottles, drink, and move on. It's getting to that point in the night where you're both tired of bookmarking _Associate Professor of Plant and Microbial Biology at Berkeley_ (for you) or  _Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature_  (for her), when you know it's just not going to happen. Also, you're pretty tipsy, and-

 _"Here's the thing, though,"_ says Erica. And there it is. She sets the bottle down on the windowsill with a thump. "How the FUCK does Ian get tenure? Ian? Really? Are we talking about Professor Ian Brenner, the guy that had three individual advisees coming to me last year because he was being an ass about disability accommodations? The Ian who probably fucking masturbates to a picture of Joseph Conrad every night? Ian 'oh, I thought all faculty meetings were open to all faculty' Brenner? The guy that got hired two years after me? This guy? _This guy?_ " 

"Apparently he's a prolific publisher," you say, just because.

She makes a sound like a dying horse. "Maybe I'd have time for that shit too, if I didn't have to coax Disability Services into doing their FUCKING JOB every time this asshole thinks some poor first-year is, like, pulling a prank on him. Or whatever the fuck he thinks is going on, God knows what happens in his tiny little birdbrain."

"You know what else might give us time to publish?" you say, warming up to it.

"If we got some pay for sitting on so many damn committees?"

" _If we didn't sit on five hundred twenty-one thousand, seven hundred and ninety-three motherfucking committees!_ Diversity in hiring committee."

"Queer Voices committee."

"Women in Science committee."

"Advising the Asian Students Alliance."

"My side job as counselor to every woman in biology because they're all scared of Kathy and everyone else is a white man!"

"My side job letting down students because I know the Title IX Reform Committee always holds Listening Sessions and never listens!"

"My actual side job as a weekend barista!" you howl. "Which I must wake up for! In seven fucking hours!"

Erica puts her laptop down, trudges to the kitchen, and retrieves for you the last of the doughnut holes.

"Thank you," you say, mouth full of doughnut and jelly. "I love you."

"I love you too." Abandoning all pretense of work, she flops onto the sofa and turns on the TV. "Did you see the email about the pipes bursting in the Student Union, though? That was pretty funny."

"No, where is it?" You open up your work email. The doughnut hole falls out of your mouth and onto the keyboard. And then you scream.

"What? Where? What is it?" You can only point. And scream some more.

"Oh my God! You're going to be an intern!"

"I'M GOING TO BE AN INTERN!"

You both scream.

It takes you both a good while to stop screaming, turn the TV off, chug some water, and make sure you're not somehow drunk-hallucinating this. But when you've both re-read the email several times, silently and then aloud, when you've conducted a forensic comparison of the logo on your email and the logo on the Wakandan Outreach Department's official website, you still have to say, "There's been a mistake."

"No," Erica says firmly. "No mistake. You're going to Wakanda."

Those last four words send a chill down your spine. You try to stay focused. "The whole point of an internship is to scout talent from the next generation. There's no way they're accepting a thirty-five year old adjunct professor with a stalled career from a state university."

"The email is real. So let's work our way back from there. Look, Wakanda isn't looking to recruit, necessarily. It's not like a company, where they need new workers every year. Wakanda has everything it needs, and this is more about exchange than anything else. What did you say in your interview?"

You try to remember. "I know I started out talking about wanting to make a difference, but it sounded too cliché, so I think—shit, this has to be a mistake."

"What?" 

"Well, they were asking what I was passionate about. So I was...honest."

"You talked about mushrooms."

"I may have spent like ten whole minutes talking about mushrooms, yes. But in my defense, I didn't think I'd get the job, and mushrooms are one of the most underrated—"

"You don't have to recite it to me. I think I've got your whole Mushroom Speech memorized by now. Maybe they need a scientist of your specialty."

"But..." You think back to the pictures you've seen of Wakanda, of the beautiful tall buildings, the wide blue sky, the dense jungle. "Maybe? But forest fungi are not my specialty."

"Look, you're overthinking this. Just accept the damn spring internship and go! Fucking go!"

"But what will you do about rent? And the department will have to find someone to cover all my classes in the spring, and I'll lose my job at Starbucks, and—"

"Starbucks?!" Erica grabs your face and leans in close. "Look at me. You have one chance. You are brilliant. You are capable. You can do this. If you do _not_ do this, I will literally take whatever wine we have left in the house, tear my bedsheets into rags, and make some Molotov cocktails. We will figure the money out. I will mortgage my soul to Satan if I have to! But if only to stop this city from burning down, you are going to Wakanda, you are going to see some mushrooms, and you are going to have a great fucking time! Do you understand?"

"Yes," you manage to say through smushed cheeks.

"Good." She lets go and sits back. "Now let's take a look at your closet. It's never too early to pack."


	2. The First Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You meet some of your fellow interns, and your new boss, Princess Shuri.

Day one, and you're already late.

After bidding Erica goodbye at the airport ("I picked you up some snacks. Here. If you see Nakia, tell her I'm in love with her, okay?" "I definitely won't, thanks!" "Okay, love you, bye!"), you slept through the flight to New York City, waking with an anxious jolt only when the wheels touched down. One frighteningly expensive cab drive later, you've arrived late at the Wakandan Outreach Center. Rushing past several exhibits which, under normal circumstances, could've consumed several days of your life, you finally arrive in a big meeting room filled with round tables. Each table is populated by five people in shirts of the same color with the Wakanda Outreach Department logo on the front, just like yours. You search for the red table, then thread your way to it.

You're trying not to stare, but after a lifetime in the Midwest, this high-ceilinged room may hold be the single largest group of black people you've ever seen in your life. Other than maybe a research conference, or a family reunion. Everyone is filling out what appears to be absolute heaps of paperwork, but some of them are chatting nonetheless, and you catch a kaleidoscope of accents. As you pass the table of green shirts, you overhear two women whispering excitedly in Spanish. Is there a word for this? A gaggle of geese, a flock of hens, a magnificence of black people?

Great, so it's your first day, you haven't even left the country yet, and you're already on the verge of tears.

Focus, focus. You sit down at the only empty chair in the red-shirt table and glance around at the others. They're all younger than you by five years at least. Going around the table from your right, there is: a man so dapper that he has managed to perfectly color-coordinate his sneakers with the blaring fire-truck red of the mandatory cotton t-shirts; a tiny woman steadily demolishing a massive bag of dried mango; a tall man gleefully signing page after page without bothering to read any of it; and a college-age girl who has her pen stuck behind her ear and appears to be idly, casually skimming the sheets. She catches you looking at her. 

"Hi, I'm Lisa," you say, because of course in a room of people mostly your own age, the one person you feel most comfortable with is someone who could be one of your students. What does that imply about your social life? You try not to think about it.

"MJ." There might be a tiny hint of friendliness there, you think, but it's buried miles deep in all the fucks she does not give.

"Did you..." The question sounds so silly in your head, even as you say it, but it comes out anyway. "Decide not to go?"

"Nah, I'm going. Just not signing this. I mean, this—" She holds up a piece of paper that turns out to be a liability waver. "Standard bullshit. But this?" She holds up a privacy agreement. "Against international law. And, under some circumstances, against UN Resolution 2388. It's—"

"That can't be possible. Resolution 2388 is about sex trafficking," says a voice behind you.

MJ rolls her eyes and turns. "Look—" She freezes. 

Princess Shuri is even more striking up close than she is in pictures. She's wearing a bright yellow top that only she could pull off, she has her hair coiled in one massive bun, and she handles the Kimoyo beads on her wrist casually, like they're not the single greatest technological innovation on the face of the earth. You don't blame MJ at all. If you were her, at that age, seeing a princess-genius up close? You'd be hyperventilating into a paper bag. MJ merely stares.

Shuri seems to freeze right back, for just a second. She really must not be used to the celebrity response, even after a few months of becoming the darling of the science world. But then she recovers. "What is your name?"

"MJ."

Shuri frowns. "I think I would have remembered your interview recordings."

"Michelle Jones." 

Still nothing.

"Look, I'm with the Social Sciences internship, but Nakia let me come a week early. 'Cause, like, there's this giant bird-man trying to kill me, and I figured Wakanda would be the better option then waiting around."

"A successful wing graft?" Shuri's eyes gleam. 

"Nah. Just your basic white man with some engineering, some metal, and some rage." Shuri looks so disappointed that MJ adds, "Sorry."

"Did Nakia say anything else?"

"Well, I've got the security badge. And the Snapchat."

You don't even try to bother hiding your eavesdropping, at this point. "Snapchat?"

"Yeah." MJ digs her phone out of her pocket, and as she does, out of the corner of your eye, you could swear you see Shuri checking her out.

It's a short video of Nakia, waving, with text over it reading:  _Sure. Tell your mother hi from me._  

Shuri consults her beads. "Well, you are on the list."

"Shuri!" Another voice calls from across the room.

She throws a gesture that you can only guess at. Maybe it means _coming soon._ "Just sign these, and we'll talk later."

"Look, maybe I was bullshitting with the UN resolution before, but this is actually a lot. This paper basically says that literally anything can happen to me in Wakanda and I can't tell anyone or do anything about it, legally." Some of the old MJ has crept back in; her chin's up, her eyes are challenging. 

You think Shuri's going to brush her off, but instead she simply leans in and says, "Guess you'll have to trust me."

Your heart just about stops, and you can see MJ swallow once, hard. 

"See you," says Shuri, and then she's walking away.

Dumbstruck, you watch her go.

"Hey," MJ calls.

Shuri turns.

"Friend me on Snapchat."

Shuri nods in a way that makes it entirely unsure whether that will happen or not, then disappears into the crowd of tables.

You join the other adults at the table in studiously reading and signing your papers, pretending that nothing just happened. After a few seconds, MJ signs every last paper without reading them, one after the other.

Once all the paperwork is signed, you introduce yourself to the dapper man on your right. He turns out to be Dr. Omar Daud, a Somali-British biochemist researching GMOs. He tries to explain his work on sorghum to you, but despite your best efforts, at the end of the talk, you can't tell whether his ideas are at the level of Norman Borlaug or Bill Nye the Science Guy. To be fair, when you go hard into your theories of weather patterns and spore spreading, his eyes eventually glaze over. He's a good-natured man, at least, and you both gave it a shot.

Before you can meet anyone else, you hear a huge, disembodied, "Hello? Guys?" and you turn to see Shuri stands at the podium at the front of the room, speaking into a mic, with an empty projector slide behind her.

"Welcome! I know that speeches can be very boring, and we would all rather be in our labs right now, so I'll just get a few things done with. First, congratulations on being here! I watched the recordings of all your interviews, and I am so excited to have you all here with us. We probably didn't give you as much detail as you would like about this internship, but we really want you to form your own first impressions and not come into your internship with any preconceived notions or nonsense. Just know that we looked at every application very carefully, and every single person is here for a reason, even if it's not one you can guess right now. 

"Second, look around! You've been grouped by preferred language and internship location. The majority of you will be in Birnin Zana, our capital city, but some of you will be assigned to border or river villages. I think we even have one going to Jabari Land. You'll know what all this is soon enough, when you get there; I've designed some pods just for this occasion that will fly you around with a little sort of history podcast synced up, so you'll get the basics. Anyway, please be friendly to the people at your table, because you'll be seeing them once a week at lunch with me.  

"Third. During our winter program, we had one of our interns attempt to document Wakandan ship technology with their iPhone and send it to a foreign government. So when I say we have to confiscate all your phones, laptops, and tablets, you know who to blame. Don't worry, we'll provide you with far better technology with which to take notes and record data. And there will be chances for you to call home.

"Finally, I know some of you have been asking about my brother. No worries, he's at the UN right now, but you'll have the chance to meet him at least once." A ripple of laughter runs through the room. Projected up in massive size behind Shuri is the single worst photo of T'Challa probably to ever exist; he appears to be in some kind of training gear, and the camera has caught him right as he's getting punched in the face. His eyes are wide, and his face sort of ripples around the fist, and all in all the photographer appears to have magically transformed 2018's Sexiest Man Alive (People Magazine got it right just this once) into a goofball. 

Shuri smirks. "Thought that would be a good note to end on. All right, everybody grab whatever you've got and head upstairs. Follow Lesedi, if you're confused about which was is up and which way is down."

An incredibly tall woman—Lesedi, presumably—waves and smiles brightly from her position at the door. As you grab your suitcase and traipse back out into the hall and up the stairs, surrounded by a crowd of people all wearing the same brightly colored cotton tees, you can't help but think that this is simultaneously the most important experience of your life and incredibly similar to summer camp.

That feeling breaks the instant you get to the top floor. It's a massive hangar of Wakandan airships, with a hatch in the ceiling just large enough to let one through. As you watch everyone hand over their phones and climb in, suitcases in hand, you can see reflected on their faces the pure, unadulterated joy and panic that sets in when you realize this is, yes, actually happening. The first airship rises only a couple feet into the air before its camouflaging system kicks in and it appears to wink out of existence.

"This can't be legal," says MJ, admiringly. 

"The FAA can't get us if they don't find out," says Shuri.

"And they can't find out if we've all signed nondisclosure agreements."

"And if they did find out, we've got a little something called diplomatic immunity."

They smile at each other.

"You know," MJ says, "If I don't have my phone, Snapchat won't be much use."

"Don't worry, I'll find you." Shuri nods to the last airship. "Don't miss your ride."

"See you." MJ hoists herself through the airship's open door, and you follow shortly after.

The airship lifts, but you can barely feel it. It's so smooth that it seems like the world is dropping away below you instead of you rising above it. For an instant, New York seems to engulf the whole horizon, but in the span of a minute, it shrinks down nothing more than a dot on the blue of the ocean. Then it disappears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: A Rocky Start. You arrive in Wakanda, learn about your assignment, and get a chilly reception from your new boss.
> 
> I just want to note that this was initially supposed to be straightforward reader insert romance, but after some thought, this is going to include a bit more than that. (For example, MJ/Shuri stormed the battalions of my heart and temporarily took me hostage.) If you were looking for a fic that's like 90% pure reader x M'Baku fluff, this is not gonna be your cup of tea. But if you're down for a long-game romance lightly spiced with intrigue and political arguments, buckle up. M'Baku's in the next chapter.
> 
> As always, please let me know what you thought! Good, bad, or otherwise.


	3. The First Day, pt II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You arrive in Wakanda and receive your research assignment.

The rest of the day passes in such an absolute blur of wonder, such a jet-lagged swirl of color and language that when you look back at it later, you can barely piece together its continuity. There are only a few things you remember clearly.

You remember entering Wakanda, the ripple in the air that broke your view of a vast savannah and replaced it with one of Birnin Zana. The way you pressed your nose to the glass like an excited kid, trying desperately to take it all in. The feeling you had, like getting hit squarely in the chest, when you saw the scaffolding on some of the tall buildings, and you recognized those even lines of rods sticking out of the adobe from an old undergraduate textbook. You used to stare at the old black and white picture of the Djenné mosque with that same scaffolding, wishing you could be there instead of freezing your ass off in your cramped apartment, and now you're in Wakanda and it's all real. It's real. That feeling is so overwhelming, that once the airships set down and you step off, you can't stop touching things to reassure yourself: the walls of the buildings you pass by, the edge of your ID tag, even the edge of the table you sit at during Nakia's welcoming speech. It's a miracle she took the time to talk to you at all, so the speech only lasts five minutes, but by the end of it you all give her a standing ovation and you think to yourself that maybe Erica had a point, maybe the wisest thing for anyone to do upon meeting Nakia would be to profess their undying love, just to sort of get it out of the way.

You remember the taste of that first dinner, the rainbow of vegetables in the pilaf blending to make a dish whose sweetness is tempered by the counterpoint of a salty braised lamb. If this were a cooking show, you would go on and on about the texture, the color, the spices. However, your brain is trained for faculty meetings with not quite enough pizza, so you eat it all quickly and quietly. Then you sit back, absorbing the conversations all around you. Eating with you are the people from your table plus a couple Wakandans: Dr. Omar Daud, the man you met before who feels about sorghum the way you feel about mushrooms; Dr. Tyler Woodard, the impeccable dresser who turns out to be disconcertingly charming; Dr. Aliyah Ball, the tiny mango fanatic who occasionally slips into Xhosa with the Wakandans; MJ, of course; and two Wakandan women from the border kingdom, Dintle and Lebo. Lebo herself is a professor of Western Studies, and she translates everything into Xhosa for Dintle.

Dr. Daud is attempting to explain American weddings to Lebo, the more energetic and friendly of the two. "There are two rings, actually. You have an engagement ring, which people wear to signal that they plan to get married, and the wedding ring, which people wear to signal that they have gotten married."

"How do you tell the difference?" Lebo is clearly fascinated.

"You...don't, actually. You would have to ask. For example..." He looks round the table. "Pardon me, Dr. Ball, but is that a wedding ring or an engagement ring?"

"Engagement. And call me Aliyah."

"Lovely. Call me Omar, too. Who's the lucky man?"

"Woman, actually. Her name is Tamara, and she's a professor in the Philosophy department."

"Hold on," says MJ suddenly. Like you, she has been silent for most of this lunch, so when she speaks, all eyes go to her. "Is _anyone_ at this table heterosexual?"

"I am," Omar says after a moment, faintly embarrassed.

"Well, we won't hold that against you. Have some more of this pilaf, it's amazing." Tyler hands over the dish.

You can see Dintle watching with an air of confusion as Lebo translates this all into Xhosa for her, but she's clearly too polite to ask whatever question has popped into her head.

"Congratulations," says Lebo.

Aliyah beams. "Thanks. Tamara's the best. She actually let me postpone the wedding for this internship, if you can believe it."

"Damn," you say.

"Yeah. But I've got a plan to make it up to her. I think I can leverage the internship into getting a promotion and a raise, and then we could see about maybe having a kid. We've been talking about it for ages."

Dintle frowns. Lebo translates her question as, "Your government requires taxes in order for you to have children?"

"No, but artificial insemination can cost quite a lot."

"Is it not true that in your country, the place you work for pays for your medical expenditures rather than the government?"

"Not exactly? There's wild variation between different insurance plans." Aliyah can see Lebo struggling to translate the bit about insurance. "Basically," Aliyah adds, "My plan is shitty and I have to pay for any fertility treatments or anything like that entirely out of my own pocket."

"You are a professor?"

"Yes."

"Your university, is it having problems with attracting students? Is it in debt due to construction? Has it suffered a recent economic recession?"

"No. No, we've got a massive endowment."

Dintle is trying her damnedest not to look appalled for the sake of being respectful. She chews on a bit of braised lamb for a minute, but then finally bursts out with something else. Lebo translates: "But doesn't that mean that in couples of those-with-vaginas, only the rich can have children?"

"...Yes."

"Lebo and I had a child two years ago. In your country, if our employer was not generous, then we could not?"

"That's right, you couldn't. Well, you could adopt," Aliyah adds. "We just got that in 2016, in all the states."

"What about you two?" Dintle points at Tyler and Omar.

"Speaking for myself, I do not have a vagina," says Tyler.

"No. Your countries. Only the rich can have children there, too?"

"Well, the UK does have the National Health Service, which is run by the government, but I'm afraid I don't know anything about that, I'm sorry," says Omar.

"We have universal health care in Australia, but I'm not sure artificial insemination would be included. That might be, uh, out-of-pocket too," says Tyler.

Now you're all embarrassed by your respective home countries, sitting in awkward silence while Dintle and Lebo are clearly holding back.

"Do you guys have, like Wakanda TV here?" MJ finally asks. Thank God. At least she still gives subzero fucks, enough to restart the conversation.

"Oh, absolutely."

Dintle lights up when Lebo translates the question to her, and soon enough the entire table is off on a cross-cultural comparison between romcom series. Even when all the food is cleared away and everyone has moved on five subjects later, you can still remember the puzzled look of deep concern on Dintle's face. _We tried,_ you want to say. _Tried for a better minimum wage and health benefits at my university, anyway. It didn't take, but we tried._ It's a fifty-fifty chance that you'd only that look again, though. So you don't.

The icebreaker mixers after that are a complete failure for you. It's not the interns from other groups; they seem lovely. It's not the language barriers; with a mix of poor Spanish and invented sign language, you manage to learn at least one fun fact about each intern. It's just that your poor brain has apparently collapsed under the weight of both jet lag and a food coma, so you retain almost none of these names, much less fun facts. The general information session passes by in a blur, too, and soon Shuri has sent you all off in little pods like flying airships to take a preprogrammed aerial tour, the very last thing before you finally get to see your host city and, hopefully, a bed.

As the sun sets, you soar above the the land, seeing the savannah, the jungle, and the cities that you remember from relentless Googling.You do your best to pay attention to the little screen that shows you a video of Shuri making a detailed and often hilarious narration of the geography and culture below ("..they breed rhinoceroses. Very friendly, gentle creatures, unless you're T'Challa, and then they may or may not gently toss you in a dung heap. Completely unprompted. I made it into a Vine, if anyone's interested, I know the Americans love Vine.") Again that feeling of stepping into a dream through some invisible door comes over you.  But as night takes over completely, the pod threads through some mountains and takes you to a place not shown on any postcard or website. The feeling that this is only a lovely dream ends.

Before you lies a moonlit mountain, colossal, looking almost like a black and white picture save for the small dots of orange light here and there. Front an center is a gigantic silverback gorilla cut into the rock, appearing to swing forward from a tall structure that tops the mountain.

All your uncertainty washes away. In its place is something that cuts worse than you expected: you are in love with this place, with the moonlight on these cliffs, with their power and silence and all that they represent. The silverback seems not ornamental, but necessary; the truest expression of the fierce pride and independence within the land. It is neither welcoming nor threatening; it is merely itself, beautiful and distinct. It swings into the future without looking to the right or the left. It makes no apology.

Longing hits you so hard, you find yourself crying. Not silently, but in the big, ugly sobs that shake your entire body. By the time the pod reaches the base of the mountain and sets down, you've used up almost all the tissues in your purse.

The screen flickers, and now it's Shuri again, but this time in the cute yellow t-shirt from this morning, hair in one bun instead of two like it was in the video. "Hi!" She waves at you.

"Hi?"

"Are you okay?"

Damn. If you had known you were going to be FaceTiming a princess, you would've tried to put on some makeup to conceal your red eyes. "Yep, everything's fine."

"Okay. I am just about to go in and give assignments to everyone working in Birnin Zana, but first I wanted to talk to you. When you filled out the personality test, you did say you're an introvert, and you enjoy working alone. So, we assigned you to Jabari Land, where you'll be the only intern. We almost had no interns, but there's something that doesn't grow anywhere else in Wakanda, except for certain caves."

"Mushrooms!" You can't help it. You're so excited you could burst.

"Exactly. Now, obviously, in Birnin Zana we have Kimoyo beads for most of our healing, but in Jabari Land they use a handful of species to create most of their remedies. And one of them used to be a major Jabari Land export, actually; it was said to decrease the risk of what you call Alzheimer's, but that was over a hundred years ago."

"Wow."

"Yeah. You can negotiate with your host about taking back samples to Birnin Zana. Obviously, you can't take vibranium up the mountain, unless you want to start a civil war with the Jabari, so for some days you'll be studying in the caves, taking notes with pencil and paper and doing experiments, and then some days you'll travel to do tests in my lab. If you get bored with that and need a break, there's also some moss and I think a vine with tiny flowers that grows near the mouth of the caves, which we could use some research on."

"I can pretty much guarantee I'll never get bored with fungi."

"Well, give them a look, anyways. The flowers are considered sacred to some tribes, and we'd really like to have some further study of them."

"Sure thing."

"Your suitcase is in the pod with you. Plus there should be a backpack, too, with some Wakandan clothes, some paper and pencils, some odds and ends, some snacks. Oh, and some kola nuts. Every American professor I've ever met talks about coffee as if it is their lifeblood, so I thought the caffeine in the nuts might help."

"God, Shuri, you're just the best. I could hug you right now."

"Don't thank me yet. Your host is probably one of our more...nationalistic Wakandans. M'Baku, the leader of the Jabari tribe. He's just like T'Challa, really, all muscle on the outside but a big boy on the inside. We're friends. I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"Right." You don't have half of Shuri's charm, smarts, or fearlessness, so this is no reassurance. Shuri could be friends with anyone.

"Now, you could walk up the mountain. There's a trail, of course. It's difficult, but not impossible. Or, if you're not comfortable with that, I can have the pod fly you to a much closer entrance. The Jabari value strength and determination, so I thought this hike might make a good first impression."

You squint out the window. You do see the trail, and it looks appropriately broad and safe, but you can't see how long it is, which means this could be a simple hike or an Olympic climb.

"Today has been mostly sitting down anyways," you say. "I'll be fine."

"Great! For the first few days, just try to settle in, make some friends, do some initial observations, and then come down for our weekly lunch and talk to me about your research plans, all right."

"All right." Talking to Shuri is perfect in every way, except that after a while your face hurts from smiling for so long.

"If there's any trouble, or if you have any questions, you can come back to the pod and talk to me. It'll unlock to your fingerprints, you can call me whenever. Just tell the pod to 'call Shuri', like one of your delicate phones. I would give you Kimoyo beads for that, but again, we don't need another civil war."

"Another civil war?"

"It wasn't really war, just a battle. All right, I've got to go talk to these guys. Have a great time! See you in three days!" Then the screen goes blank.

After some thought, you stuff your underwear, tampons, makeup kit, and washing up bag into the backpack. Then you eat a handful of peanuts mixed with kola nuts (much to your disappointment, the kola nuts don't really taste like anything), hoist the backpack onto your shoulders, and start on your way up the trail.

"This is fine," you tell yourself. "It's fine! There's caffeine. You can do this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: You meet M'Baku. 
> 
> Thank you so much to every single reader who gave kudos or commented. Chapter 3 and 4 were a bit more difficult to write than the first two, and it gave me so much energy to look at your comments. Black Panther fandom is the best. I love you guys.
> 
> On the subject of African history and culture, I've had as good an education as any American high school graduate, which is to say: a miserably inadequate one. I'm currently trying to rectify that; I don't want to overstep by making too much up out of thin air. Wakanda is a sort of pan-African futuristic dream, so I'll pull from several different African countries where it seems appropriate. I will always share my sources in "Information and Resources for Writing About Wakanda" with relevant notes in case you find them useful in writing your own BP fic. You should be able to find it on my works page. It has pieces ranging from an interview with Winston Duke about Jabari Land's anti-vibranium culture, to an article on Birnin Zana, the capital, from a city planner's perspective.


	4. The Rocky Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You meet M'Baku.

For a little while, you manage to set a brisk pace up the mountain, hoping to make a good impression on your new boss. About half an hour later (you think? hard to tell without a watch, unfortunately), you're huffing and puffing and decide to take a new tactic, the one you turn to on the rare occasions that you step into the gym: you create a fantasy world and escape into it while your body slogs along at a slow, steady pace. At first, the fantasy world is vivid and wide: it encompasses you, and your new boss, who you've decided is a beautiful lesbian, and a beach, and a battle. Then it starts to narrow down to a nice golden retriever and flirting with another barista over coffee, because yes, even with the kola nuts, you badly miss coffee. Then it narrows to Erica giving you one of her world-famous backrubs while you both watch Beyoncé winning all the Grammy Awards. At some point, your legs are burning, and you're just fantasizing about sleeping, and you have to stop. You cannot possibly obsess over the comforts of a fictional four-poster for the rest of the hike. That's just not healthy.

You look down to see how much upwards progress you've made, and you're horrified to find that you've only made it roughly a quarter of the way up. And also? Looking down makes you queasy. You regret all that pilaf.

Shoving those thoughts to the background, you walk on with renewed determination, cycling through incoherent levels of self-administered pep talks. You think of Shuri, and Nakia, and how amazing they are, how much you want to join their ranks, to become the woman of Wakanda they apparently think you can be (even though there's still a part of you that is convinced they made a mistake). You think of Erica screaming and cheering in your left ear while your mother whispers encouragement in your right ear. You think of the mountain, how much you love it. You tell yourself that this climb is like a pilgrimage, something that will show your respect for the country.

Then you figure out that, despite your runners serving you perfectly well for years around campus, you've just begun to develop a blister. You are almost halfway up the mountain.

"Fuck." You take a moment to eat some more kola nuts, then you set your teeth. Now is not the time to be dignified. Talking to yourself might look absolutely mad, but at this point, you're going to do whatever you have to do. "You need to get up this fucking mountain. If you do not haul your ass all the way up this mountain, you are going to personally and professionally finished. Do you want to see these goddamn mushrooms? Do you want to get your hands on that sweet Wakandan microscope? Hm? Fucking move."

Weirdly enough, the angrier you sound, the stronger you feel. "That's it, bitch. Left, right, left."

As you get higher and higher, you start to feel something like hope (or maybe that's the extra kola nuts kicking in). You're more than halfway done, and that has to mean something. Rambling about mushrooms gives way to rambling about finally getting tenure if you get up this mountain. Finally finding a partner if you get up this mountain.

Then the blister bursts.

You pause, look down. One-third to go, and your legs feel like rubber. The winds have begun to pick up, too, and you're uncomfortably cold. Fuck. Your body demands to sit down on that large rock over there and take a rest, but you know that if you do, you probably won't get up for another ten hours, so you find yourself just standing there, swaying a little.

Time for your undergraduate double major in completely unsubstantiated bullshit and completely baseless hope. "There is meaning on this mountain," you tell yourself, fixing a stray curl that has managed to get out of place. When you speak, you can feel the cold a little more, so instead you think the words to yourself.

_There is a place for you on this mountain. When you get up this mountain, you will find a place that changes where it needs to change. You will find people that don't leave each other behind. If someone gets fucking hurt on this mountain, you can help them. You can save them._

You start, however slowly, to walk again. One foot in front of the other. Just a little progress, and then a little more. _When your friends need you, you can be there on this mountain. There does not need to be five committees and chair approval and a budget in order to save lives on this goddamn mountain. There is hope on this mountain. There is a life on this mountain. A life that doesn't grind you down into someone who thinks they're going to live in the same shitty apartment forever with disrespect every fucking Saturday and Sunday._

It's been hours. You can feel the cold setting in, now, cold in your nose, in your cheeks, your forehead. It's no longer uncomfortable; it's unbearable. There's a few tears now, but it's not much and you can wipe them away with your sleeve. Your mind goes on and on like a drum.

_There's another world on this mountain. Jamie never got hurt on this mountain. All your trauma gets scrubbed from your mind on this mountain. There is the truth on this mountain. Your mother knows on this mountain. It's all right on this mountain. They need you on this mountain. You matter on this mountain._

You round a corner, and then there's just stairs cut into the stone, narrow and steep. Fucking steep.

 _"Fuck!"_ you scream. It's meant to be long, and agonized, but the wind just snatches it away from you and it sounds terribly small.

_There is meaning on this mountain._

You ascend the stairs.

Left, right, left, right, and suddenly you're hit full in the face by light. You squint into it and find that before you are just a few more steps up to a stone platform on which stand two Jabari guards holding tall staffs of Jabari wood. If they heard your shout, or notice your red eyes, they don't let on. They just look at you unblinkingly, blank-faced.

"Hi," you say. You realize it is rather ridiculous to start a conversation when your head is at the level of their feet. You climb the rest of the stairs.

"Mholweni," says the guard. You know enough to know that he's saying hello back in Xhosa.

Unable to think of any more words in Xhosa except for _please, bathroom, mushroom,_ and _no_ , you just point to the internship ID tag hanging round your neck, which has your information written in both the English and the Wakandan alphabet.

After a minute or two of conferring amongst themselves, one of the guards gestures at you to follow them, and you stumble after them into the tunnel.

The tunnel leads you into a building with a long, twisting hallway guarded by two more people. The guard escorting you stops to talk a moment with them, then finally deposits you in a small room with the walls painted white, two torches like sconces on the wall, a piece of ivory lit from the inside to show off the intricate carvings on it, and a large wooden bench across from the ivory. It reminds you of a museum, albeit the tiniest museum you've ever seen. The guard gestures at the bench, then fetches you a cup of something that tastes like Rooibos. You take a sip and turn to say thank you, only to find that the guard has left.

Gratefully, you sink into the bench, sip the tea, and study the sculpture across from you. It's almost like a candy cane, in that there are stripes going up its curved length, but instead of mere color, there's an astonishing level of detail in the carvings in the ivory. Little people walk up the stripes, little people that, you realize with a growing sense of unease, appear to be fighting each other, carrying curved burdens on their heads. One figure carries, quite clearly, a ring of keys. It's exquisite, but at the same time, deeply disturbing. As your body warms, you fall into a deep reverie, still staring at the sculpture.

A voice from behind you knocks you out of it.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" you say, rubbing your eyes and trying to remember where you are.

"Do you like it?" The voice is deep and authoritative, not impatient, but not slow, either.

You're too tired to say anything witty or charming, so you just say exactly what you're thinking. "I don't think this is the kind of art I can categorize into a simple dichotomy of liking or not liking."

"Do you often find it difficult to give an honest answer?"

"That was an honest answer."

"That was far too many words for a yes or no question."

You look over your shoulder. The speaker is a tall, broad man in some mix of fur and leather that does an absolutely masterful job of displaying his muscular body. On any other day, that would be the subject of your interest, but this is Wakanda, where everyone is beautiful, and more importantly, you need to get this conversation over with so you can sleep.

"You can have a yes or no answer, or you can have an honest answer, not both," you say.

He chuckles. You can't tell if that's a mirthless chuckle or a genuine one. "You're not afraid of me."

"I wasn't aware that I should be."

"I could crush your skull like a wild melon with my bare hands."

"I almost died just by walking on an incline for a few hours. Everyone in Wakanda could crush me with their bare hands. I'm fairly sure an eight-year-old Shuri could've crushed me with her bare hands. I'm extremely crushable." Oh no. You appeared to have reached that dreadful phase of sleepiness where you can't stop talking.

"Yes, Mfuneko told me that you took the longest path up to us."

"Shuri advised me that taking it would be a display of determination, or something. In my defense, if I could do it all over again, I'd have chosen differently."

"That wasn't an accusation." He's studying you, openly, but not in the leering way of a man on the street you'd want to punch. More like you're about to play a game of chess.

This would be intriguing and pleasant, except, again, you're so tired you can barely keep your eyes open. "My name is Lisa."

"I know."

"I take it yours is M'Baku?"

He rolls his eyes. "Now we've reviewed everything we already know, let's discuss why you're here."

"I was hoping that was something you already knew."

"I know Nakia attempted to get me an intern during the first round of you. I know that one of those turned out to be an American spy, who tried to smuggle pictures out in one of your pitiably weak devices. I know that Nakia considers your research vital to some medicinal information sharing project of hers, but what I don't know is why I should care. I told her I didn't want to have you."

Oh God. "I have a really simple assignment. I'll just take notes on the mushrooms, maybe grow some, and report back to Shuri, that's all. I won't cause any trouble, I swear."

"You're American," he says. In all fairness, that does explain a lot. You wish you could sound more eloquent and erudite in your own defense, but at the moment, you're feeling a little dizzy.

"I'm black."

"So was the spy."

"Then..." You muster the last of your energy. "Sodium thiopentol."

"What?"

"Truth serum. Shoot me up with it, ask me if I'm a spy. Or make me go through a lie detector, or both. Crush my head if I'm a liar."

"I was going to do that anyway."

"Still."

He weighs this in his mind, then he comes to some kind of a decision. He walks over to the sculpture. "Do you recognize this?"

"No."

"It was carved in the middle of your nineteenth century. It came over our borders, both as a warning and as a way to get it away from the colonizers. My aunt, a great artist, hollowed it out and treated it so that it could withstand the flame without burning. It is beautiful, I will admit. Despite everything, the artist found a way to make it beautiful. She used to tell me that this was an example of how good things can come from evil. But I told her it would be better if it had never been made." Just when you think he's done, he says, "You will return to Birnin Zana."

You open your mouth.

"This is not a debate."

Head in your hands, all you can think is that, at some level, you expected this. Being allowed to stay here was never something that seemed logical, never seemed like something you deserved. It's not quite as devastating because it's not really a surprise. But okay, yeah, you'll admit it. Still fucking devastating.

Miraculously, he says nothing, and allows you to sit there for a full minute before you straighten and say, "All right." You get up and head for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I know the way down."

"If you try to go now, you'll likely topple off the ibex."

"The what?"

"The--" He stares at you. "The long path is for ibex travel."

"I don't know what that is. I genuinely don't know what that is."

"Hooves? Horns?"

"Goats?"

"No, ibexes."

"Well, I walked."

Again, he stares. Then he heads for the door and gestures at you to come with him. "I'll take you. As I said, in this state, you can't go down alone."

"Falling off the mountain would be fine." But you follow him, down the hall, through a few turns, into a massive cavern that smells of straw and manure. An animal that looks quite a lot like a goat with long curved horns trots up to you. And, okay, that's cute, but how are you supposed to ride it? You reach out to pet it, and it nibbles on your fingers.

M'Baku clucks and whistles in an odd, specific combination, and you hear hooves. You look up. Oh. Oh, okay. This animal is not the size of a goat. This animal is larger than a farm horse. Fuck. You turn to M'Baku, and find he is looking expectantly back at you.

"You can mount here," he says, gesturing to a rock about a foot and a half tall.

"I can what?"

"Just vault off the rock."

"I've never vaulted onto anything. I've never ridden an animal in my life. Horses are for rich people."

"This is not a horse."

"Clearly. It's worse." The big ibex looks at you reproachfully with its big dark eyes. It is standing very docilely in front of the rock. Actually, it is rather cute, in a gentle giant sort of way. "I mean--bigger. Harder to vault onto."

M'Baku sighs and stands atop the flat rock himself. "Come here."

"If you throw me, I will scream. I won't want to, but I will. Just on instinct."

"I'm not going to throw you. Come closer."

At this proximity, it's impossible not to notice that he's gorgeous. That he smells faintly and sweetly of some herbs that you can't place. That he, too, is tired, even though he's hiding it better than you. That, almost hidden behind the fur, there's a scar exposed on his shoulder, pale enough to be recent. That reminds you, you want to ask him about the civil war Nakia mentioned, but now he's quiet, and you're suddenly shy.

"Turn around," he says. You do, and then you feel his hands on your waist, lifting you up, turning you in the process, and settling you on the back of the ibex like you weigh nothing at all. Hesitantly, you touch the horns of the ibex, running your fingers along their ridges. M'Baku grabs a massive fur from its hook by the door, then leaps off the rock and lands behind you. He settles the fur over the two of you like a cape, allowing you to share body heat.

"Good?"

"Yes," you manage to say.

M'baku clucks, and through a series of gentle pressures with his heels (you can feel his legs moving behind you, though you try not to think about it), he guides the ibex through a wide, rocky passageway that opens out onto the same stone platform you encountered during your climb. The guards stationed there give him the cross-armed salute of Wakanda. He returns it, and then the ibex nimbly leaps down the stairs, catches itself on the path, and begins ambling downward.

M'Baku says your name.

"What?"

"You're tense. You're exhausted, and you weren't afraid of me before. So why are you tense now?"

"Because this is strange, and you're beautiful." Oh, wait a second. "There _was_ something in that tea, wasn't there? Some kind of truth serum?"

"No, this is entirely your own doing."

"Oh." You've cried twice today, and done more physical exertion in four hours than you've done in the past month. You have no more fucks to give. You are physically incapable of feeling embarrassment. So it's with a sense of dry detachment that you add, "I don't suppose you could forget I just said that?"

"The Jabari forget nothing. It's against our culture to wilingly forget."

"Fair enough."

He gives a deep belly laugh. "Well, you too are beautiful, but I do not find it frightening."

"You don't have to be polite."

"I'm not. You don't frighten me at all."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know. Why would you not accept it? It's as if you said Lesedi was tall, and she denied, it, or if you said Shuri was smart, and she denied it."

"It's not in my culture to take a compliment. For women, anyway. Even if it is true, which again in this case is debatable."

"I thought Americans used honesty as a cover for aggressive truth-telling. And that they enjoy self-aggrandizement. Surely they love justified compliments. And you, you're honest."

"It's complicated. And I'm not this honest, usually. Not a liar, just...more diplomatic."

"I hate people that are diplomatic."

"Then it's good that you met me now, when I'm so exhausted, I'm almost drunk. I'm not usually like this when I'm trying to get people to like me. Definitely not on the first day of work. People usually prefer diplomacy from someone like me."

"Their loss."

You don't know how to take that, so you change the subject. "Why are you taking me down the mountain? And don't say I'd fall off the ibex. I know I'd fall off. But it didn't have to be you."

"I'm one of the few Jabari who speak English, and I don't trust you."

"Then why not one of the Jabari who speak English? Again, any of them could crush me with their bare hands, and you, you're a leader of a whole kingdom. Surely you don't have time for this."

You can't see him, but you can feel him shrug. "I rarely sleep."

"That sounds terrible."

"It's not bad."

"Well, I can sleep every chance I get and I'm still tired all the time."

"Why would you still be tired if you can sleep?"

"You would be tired, too, if your week was full of confused students, endless work, and angry soccer moms."

"Soccer?"

"The English call it football."

"Ah. Well, during my week, I have to decide disputes between families, sort through new policies, and kill people who are trying to kill me, so I too am tired."

"All right, you win."

"I never lose."

"Really?"

His voice changes in a way you can't quite pin down. "No."

You want to chase that, but you know your mind has none of the subtlety or acuity it needs. You fumble about for something to say. "So how has your week been?"

"You can sleep, if you want," he says. "Or at least stop talking and rest."

"Well, now I'm offended. You want me to stop talking?"

"I want to see if such a thing is possible." You love the way you can hear the smile in his voice.

"I'll give it a go, just for you." You find that you've relaxed a little, allowed yourself to settle against him. It takes a second, but you figure it out. Although the knowledge that you will never see Jabari Land again breaks your heart, there is something deeply comforting about the fact that you will never see this man again, and so anything you say or do with him is guaranteed to be in the past.

Sitting atop the ibex is not exactly comfortable, but it does move in a rhythm, and you find yourself lulled into a not-quite sleep almost all the way down the mountain.

Someone's talking to you. You wake with a start from a half-remembered nightmare, only to find M'Baku's arms catching you. The fur slips from one of your shoulders, but he is warm.

"It's all right, I have you. We're here," he says.

And indeed you are at the base of the mountain, with the pod only a few yards away. "Thank you."

He leaps from the ibex with a grace that belies his size, then helps you down too. Again his hands on your waist send electricity all along your body; again, you try to ignore it.

"Sorry you didn't get any photos for your Instant gram," he says, flippantly. You're a different kind of tired now, beyond banter, and you're leaving, too, which doesn't help. Leaving Jabari Land, and the silverback, and him. And he's just standing there smiling slightly, like it's all fine. And it's not fine. It's not fine.

"I don't have an Instagram," you say dully. "I came for the mushrooms."

"For the mushrooms?" He has on the exact same look of skepticism that your mother had when you told her. And all the frustration suddenly pours out, not just about the mushrooms, but about everything else.

"I'm a biologist. I care very much about mushrooms. They're incredibly complex, and absolutely essential to the cycle of life and death, and they're--they're fascinating. They have so much possibility, and there are so many species yet undiscovered, or not studied. And yet, they are relegated in everyone's minds to merely bland things used in cooking, or funny hallucinogens. Overlooked, cast aside? Why does nobody believe me when I say that mushrooms may well be the future of medicine on this fucking planet?"

"I believe you," he says.

All right, that was a rant. You told yourself you wouldn't give the mushroom rant to anyone in Wakanda, to preserve what little reputation you could cobble together, and here you are delivering it to a veritable king. You wish you could decipher his expression. This is not how you wanted the night to end. You realize it only now that in some illogical part of you, you were hoping it ended better than this.

"Well, I guess this is goodbye," you say.

He offers you his hand, and you shake it. It feels all wrong.

"Goodbye," he says.

There's no more you can say or do after that. You walk away. You press your hand to the lock, and the door to the pod slides open.

"I'm no fool," he says, suddenly.

You turn. "What?"

"You may be honest, but Nakia has a hidden agenda.  She was a spy for years, you know. And spies are not to be trusted. When she argued for your position in Jabari Land, she said a great deal about an exchange of ideas, about science, about abstract concepts, but I know enough about Nakia to know that she doesn't care about that. She doesn't care about concepts, she cares about people. She cares about Wakanda. She would not send you up the mountain, knowing you might be turned back, unless she wanted to put me in a difficult position. That means that there's something at play here I don't know about. Tell her that, from me. Tell her it's not about you. If I knew what she knew, if I understood why she wanted you in Jabari Land so badly, perhaps this could be different."

You try not to feel a leap of hope at that. It's too familiar a feeling, and last time it ended badly. "I'll tell her."

He nods.

You climb inside, close the door, and instruct the pod to take you to Shuri. As you lift off, you can see him watching you, and you watch him too until he's out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Nakia gives you some advice, Shuri explains her philosophy about flirting with American girls, and you head up the mountain to go another round with M'Baku.


	5. The Breakfast-Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You debrief with Shuri and Nakia. Including, but not limited to: fried food and arguments over feminism.

Is that chirping?

You open your bleary eyes and throw the covers off, staring up at the patterned ceiling above you. Everything filters back to you: landing atop Shuri’s lab, concern in her eyes, a hasty explanation, a glass of water, this couch. Also, ow. Not just ow.

“Fuck.” Even getting up sends sharp protests from your aching legs. In fact, even your arms hurt a little, and that shouldn’t be possible. It’s not like you were lifting, Jesus.

You squint out the window, shading your eyes against the sun. Is that really sunrise? But then you couldn’t have slept much. The chirps don’t sound right, either. Metallic. 

“Shuri?” 

“Hi!” 

You crane your head up and see her peeking over the railing of the massive circular platform in the middle of the lab. You wave. “Can I come up and talk to you?”

“I think you’ve done enough climbing, don’t you?” Shuri disappears. There’s a few beeps, and then the metallic chirping stops. Suddenly you see her sliding down the railing of the massive spiral staircase, smiling widely like a toddler on a swing. You were all set to be merely polite and tolerably pleasant, with the aching and the disappointment underneath, but that smile reminds you that you are, after all, in the company of a delightful person and in the greatest country in the world.

Shuri lands deftly. “Hungry?

“I could eat an ibex.”

“Then right this way.” She glances back at you over her shoulder. “Just so you know, I don’t care, but I wouldn’t even joke about that with M’Baku.”

“Noted.” You follow her silently through a veritable maze of equipment for a full minute, before it hits you. “Wait, when? When would I be joking about this with M’Baku again? He basically threw me off the mountain.”

“He rode you down.”

“He—Shuri, that word has different implications in English.”

“Which?”

“Rode. It’s like...”

She grins. “You can say fucked, I’m not tiny.”

“Sorry, I’ve just spent the last ten years of my life trying to be professional with kids exactly your age. Young adults, I mean. Oh my God.” You see something through the glass door into a side alcove, and then she opens the door and the smell hits you. “Oh my  _ God.  _ Did you make this?”

She pauses in the doorway. “Yeah.”

“It’s beautiful. What is it?”

“This is what happens when I build myself a kitchen and my mother isn’t here to stop me from frying everything in sight. I tried to keep it within the theme of breakfast, even though technically it’s dinnertime, because this is your first meal after waking up.” She points. “That’s mahamri, because I had some coconut milk that needed using up. That’s fried plantain wrapped in bacon, because the only good American policy is wrapping food in bacon. That’s a plantain frittata, in case you needed something not-fried in your life. And these are kind of like cherry tomatoes. I keep trying to make them grow into perfect spheres, but they end up either slightly too fat or slightly too tall every time.” She pops one in her mouth and chews. Frowns. “They’re still not tangy enough, either. Oh well. Sit down and have some of the rest.”

She doesn’t have to tell you twice. You sit down, close your eyes for a quick second, then reach for the plate of mahamri, doughy triangles fried so deep into gold they’re almost a bit orange. You’re expecting them to taste like doughnuts, but they’re less sugary than that, and more dangerous.

“What do you think?” she says, halfway through her own mahamri.

“I could eat the whole plate. But I won’t, because bacon.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Shuri says, after you have both demolished a good two-thirds of the food and are leisurely nibbling your way through the rest. “You don’t have to answer, but just part of the cultural exchange.”

“Sure.”

“Were you praying just then? Before we started eating?”

“Kind of.”

“Then what religion would you say you are?”

“I wouldn’t.” You put down your fork. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be prickly, it’s just hard to explain.”

“That’s all right.” 

You nibble onwards for a few minutes before you add, “Technically, I was praying to God. But really it’s to my mother.”

“Oh. I talk to my ancestors all the time. Why don’t you pray directly to your mother?”

“Because...she believed in God. Like, Christian Jesus God. I really don’t, but she’d be pissed off if she thought I was praying to anyone else. If I'm really worried or thankful or I just miss her, I sort of make him play intermediary. If that makes any sense.”

“You respect your mother, so you try to talk to her the way she likes it. That much I understand.”

It's almost magical, the way Shuri has hit on the one subject you want to avoid more than discussing your job. But she has, so here you go. “Um, do you know if I’ll be assigned somewhere else now?”

“Nakia said to wait for her before debriefing.”

“Okay.” Shuri chews on a bit of bacon and plantain, looking relatively subdued. That can't be a good sign. Best change the subject to something cheerier, and distract the both of you. “Is MJ around? I think she was assigned to Birnin Zana.”

“Yes, Nakia has her doing some mini-project on how to implement an after-school African history program. She's just three doors down, comes in all the time to steal my food.”

“That's nice.” You eye her over the last of the frittata. “You two get on well, don't you?”

“It's a work in progress.”

“I’d offer you advice, but you're better at flirting with girls than I am, it seems.”

“Really?” She breaks into a big smile of relief. “I couldn't tell. I thought I'd blown it. I was trying something new, you see.”

“You were different, I noticed. Not as sunshiney as usual.”

Shuri makes a noise of exasperation. “I wasn't trying to be dour, but American girls are so difficult to flirt with. You can’t joke with them, you can’t smile at them, you can’t touch them on the arm. It’s no good, because it just ends the same way. ‘Oh, Shuri, I feel like we’ve been friends for ages already.’ Friends? No! I want you to take me all the way to the top of the Empire State Building and  _ kiss me! _ ” She gestures emphatically.

“So instead, of being friendly, you did the opposite and decided to be very mysterious.”

“I did some research. One of your most prevalent cultural touchstones, when it comes to women’s perceptions of romance, is the rom-com.”

“Shuri, you are a genius, but I am not. Please connect the dots for me.”

“I was trying to be Mr. Darcy.”

You want to bust out laughing, but you can’t: “It worked!”

“I hope so.”

A new voice from behind you says: “What worked?”

You rise out of your chair before you even know who the voice belongs to; something about its quietness and serenity holds more power than shouting.

Shuri lights up. “Nakia!”

And it is Nakia, more regal in a simple blue dress than the Queen of England ever was with scepter in hand. She and Shuri give each other a big hug, and then she turns to you and says your name with a smile. You freeze.

“After the phone interview, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Now that you think of it, her voice does sound familiar. Speechless, you shake her hand and sit back down with her as Shuri bustles around the kitchen.

“I’ve eaten, you don’t have to,” Nakia says. Shuri just opens up the fridge, produces a small jar of some brown sauce, and puts it on the table in front of Nakia. Nakia dips the tip of a spoon in and licks the spoon.

“Eh?” Shuri says, knowingly.

“Perfection.” Nakia pushes the jar towards you. “She’s been at this caramel for two weeks now, try it.”

“I don’t think I could eat one more bite,” you say, but then you pick up a spoon and eat some.

“Round two of mahamri in ten minutes,” Shuri adds, pulling the extra dough out of the fridge.

“You spoil me.”

Shuri swings by for a taste of the sauce. “Not enough salt.”

“Well, I think it’s perfect.”

“That’s because you have a sweet tooth.”

Maybe it’s the sugar, or maybe it’s the easy camaraderie between the other two women, but the butterflies in your stomach are almost gone by the time Nakia starts talking to you.

“So.” She puts her spoon down. “Tell me about what happened last night.”

You swallow. “Well, I hiked up the mountain, and then there were a couple guards--”

“How?”

“What?”

“How did you get all the way up? We weren’t sure you could do it.”

That’s a very good question. “I don’t know. I...gave myself a pep talk, a bit. I ate some kola nuts.”

“All right, go on.”

You go through the story, stopping every now and then when Nakia asks for clarification. She wants to hear everything spoken by you or M’Baku as word-for-word as you can remember, and you do your best, trying not to wince at the memories of a few particularly embarrassing things you said (did it really only take jet lag and a hike to strip you of that much dignity?). Eventually, much to your surprise, Shuri stops you. You forgot that she was even there, you were so immersed in telling the story at the level of detail Nakia requires.

“I’m sorry?” you say.

“Repeat that last part, please,” Shuri says.

“He said something like ‘I will not debate this,’ and then I said, ‘All right.’ And I got up to go, but--”

“But you climbed up the mountain.”

“Yes, but there was not a king telling me that I couldn’t climb it while I was climbing it.”

Shuri pulls up a stool and leans forward on the table. “Why didn’t you fight him?”

“Shuri,” Nakia says quietly. But you go on. You don’t want to need defending. 

“The part where I said I was extremely crushable was accurate. It still is accurate. I’ve been crushable since at least second grade.”

“I didn’t mean that you should try to hit M’Baku,” says Shuri, “but why didn’t you argue more? Whether or not something is debatable is in itself a question up for debate.”

You falter. “I guess I didn’t want to make him angry.”

“Why not? Why do you care about his feelings?”

You stare at her in something like amazement. “I don’t know. Challenging men in power and making them pissed off usually does not work, in my experience.”

“So in your experience, it is better to give men whatever they want, and not argue?”

“I did argue!” You’re doing your best not to get angry, because it’s not anger at the root of this anyways, it’s fear that maybe she is right, that you’ve screwed up. Shuri’s not angry, she’s calm, maybe even disappointed.

“By your own account, you argued less than a minute. And why does it matter that he’s a man? You said on your Facebook that you were a feminist. On several social media sites.”

“You were reading my  _ Facebook _ ?”

“Okay,” Nakia cuts in. “Shuri, the mahamri will be burnt if you don’t check on them soon.”

Shuri gets up with a look of frustration and--yes, that’s definitely disappointment. It cuts you to your core. 

Fortunately, you have plenty of experience with fleeing before the tears hit. You push back your chair. “You know what? I think I should take a shower. I probably still smell like ibex.”

“Stay,” Nakia says mildly. “Take a moment to think, both of you. It’s only a misunderstanding. Think outside Wakanda, think outside America. Don’t think of arguments, think of what is.”

It’s quiet in the kitchen for a while, and you do try. After a few minutes, Shuri sits back down with a fresh plateful of mahamri. Nobody eats.

“I’ll go first,” Nakia says. “Shuri and I chose you for a purpose. With your history, with your skills, with your knowledge, we thought you’d be the perfect fit. But we can’t tell you everything. With all our interns, with anyone who is going to leave Wakanda as a civilian, there are things you can’t know, for the country and for your own safety.”

You nod. “So M’Baku was right. He did say, just before I left, that he wanted to know your hidden agenda. And that he’d reconsider, if he had any idea why he should care. Or something like that.”

Nakia and Shuri exchange a look. “We’ll have to talk about that,” Nakia says.

“I can go take the shower now, if you need some time to talk it over alone,” you say.

Nakia looks up. “No, we’re not done yet.”

You smile nervously. “That sound ominous.”

“It’s not. Shuri, your turn.”

Shuri clears her throat. “I only wanted to understand, because it didn’t make sense to me. But you come from a different culture. I should have taken that into account. I was frustrated because I was so happy when I saw that you made the climb, I felt sure that you’d be able to stay after that. But it’s not really your fault that you couldn’t stay. You didn’t have all the information you needed.”

“Okay,” says Nakia. “Now your turn.”

You look at your hands. “I’m sorry. I got defensive. I—you’re right, I come from a different culture, but when I say it’s better not to make a powerful man angry, I’m not saying that because I agree that they should have that power. I don’t buy into that part of the culture, I just — I  _ have _ gone head-on with a powerful man before. With many of them, mostly white, people that could end my career, or worse.” It was hard, at first, but now it all comes pouring out. “I’ve fought. I’ve burned a lot of bridges. But I was never a genius or a princess, and it was never on even terms. Even if you fight dirty, even if you fight as hard as you can, in America, it’s not vibranium versus Jabari wood, it’s...a twig to Jabari wood. At some point I had to pick and choose my battles, which I like to think isn’t the same thing as always giving up. But.” You swallow hard.

Shuri takes your hand. When you look up at her, you can see that there’s only warmth in her dark eyes, and it gives you the strength you need to confess. “But maybe I have been giving up more than I should, lately. When I think about the last year...” You shake your head. “I compromised so much, and I worked down to the bone, but I still I don’t know if I made much of a difference. I really don’t. I want to change, though. You said you need me here, and I want to help. I’ll go back there and I’ll argue with him till I’m blue in the face, if that’s what you need. I’ll do anything.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Nakia says gently. “Shuri and I can make things a little clearer for him. We didn’t want to go this far, but I doubt he’ll change his mind without more information.”

“Okay.” The silence is comfortable, and now you’re grateful that she didn’t let you flee the conversation. Nakia helps herself to some mahamri, and soon the three of you are munching away.

After a while, Nakia says, “We can write him a letter and settle some things, while you’re washing up.”

“You do smell like ibex,” Shuri teases. “Shower’s down the hall, second door on the left.”

You let go, get up, and find through some miracle that you feel better than before. “Thanks for dinner-breakfast. It was lovely.”

“Next time, I’ll have the caramel dipping sauce right.”

“I’m telling you, it’s perfect,” Nakia is saying as you go out the door. You pick up some clothes from your suitcase before you make your way down the hall. Instead of stopping at the second door on the left, you go down one down and knock. “Hey.”

“Hey.” MJ swivels her chair around. “I heard you basically climbed Mount Everest just to get fired.”

“Yep.” Although she’s definitely singular not only as a person, but in the pure depth of fucks not given, and although she’s not even a college student, MJ still gives you a homey, familiar feeling. “Heard you’re working on an education program?”

She shrugs. “Saving the kids from boredom, superhero work.”

“Sounds good. Well, I should go. Gotta shower.”

“You definitely do.” MJ swivels back.

“Just so you know…”

“Mm?”

“She likes fried food. Bacon especially.”

“Mm.” MJ’s voice is perfectly flat.

“See you around.” You close the door and head off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: You deliver Nakia's mysterious letter to M'Baku.
> 
> Thank you so much to every single person who commented. Your encouragement means so much to me, and every time you mention something that you like, my brain takes note. E.g. I wasn't sure if Shuri/MJ went off well, but you guys seem to like it, so I'm gonna keep it going. <3


	6. The Second Round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time, you've had some sleep.

This time, you skip the climb and take the pod all the way up to the top platform. Although you haven’t quite got the steering down perfectly, you take great care to leave a good four feet between the bottom of the pod and the top of the platform. Shuri impressed on you that no vibranium has been in Jabari Land for hundreds of years, and while technically all Wakandan airspace falls under T’Challa’s purview, you’re not about to push it. Still hovering, you peek out the glass (or, knowing Shuri, the ‘glass-esque but better than glass’ material) at the guards below. You wave your little ID tag at them, but already one is heading down the tunnel. No more delay. Putting on your backpack, you press the button that opens the door, judge the distance, and make the leap.

You land hard, pitch forward, and skin your left knee like a kid falling off their first bicycle a split second before that familiar deep voice says, “Round two?”

Maybe it’s the nighttime, or the boost of talking with Shuri and Nakia, or the slip of paper in your pocket, or maybe when it comes to him you’ve already embarrassed yourself so badly that anything else on top of it really doesn’t mean much. Whatever the reason, you find yourself smiling at the challenge as you straighten up. You meet M’Baku’s eyes. “Round two.”

“Come along, then.” He turns, and you follow him down the tunnel.

You’re tempted to say something about his clothes; this time, the fur ruff is twice as big as before, not to mention some sort of gauntlets that have big strips of fur crisscrossed with leather going down his forearms. But no. Better get through this conversation first. You reach the same room as before, with the torches, sculpture, and bench. 

“I was hoping I’d get to see something more cheerful in the artwork this time around. A funeral, perhaps?” you say. 

M’Baku gives you a bit of a look and sits down on the bench. You follow suit.

“So,” he says. “You didn’t climb this time.”

“Once was enough.”

“What’s your new argument, then?” He leans back and regards you with the benevolent, slightly condescending look of a PhD listening to the thesis of a high school junior.

“I’ll sleep in the cave.”

“Which one?”

“The one with the most mushrooms.”

“And what will you eat?”

“Well, there’s about five pounds of kola nuts in my bag, so there’s a start.”

He scoffs. 

“Look, you’re afraid of me learning about you, your language, the land, the people, anything that could be used against you, anything that isn’t strictly mushrooms. If I’m isolated, it won’t happen. I assume you don’t particularly care if I give Nakia some research? I can’t imagine a way that spreading life-saving medical knowledge to her of all people will somehow put you in danger, and we’re all safe in the knowledge that if I blab, she knows seventy-odd ways to kill me.”

“Ah yes,” he rumbles, “Because the American government is so very comfortable with other countries controlling their own valuable resources.”

“Somehow I don’t think that will be a problem with Wakanda.”

“What astounding naiveté.”

“Let me put it this way: there isn’t a week that goes by when Wakanda is not shouted about on Fox News, and yet it’s the only country, it seems, that no Fox News anchor wants to invade. It’s because they’re scared. And they should be.”

“Fox News? What is that?”

“You’ve never heard of it?” It makes sense, but still, there’s a moment of pure surprise. “You truly live a blessed existence up here in the mountains, let me tell you. They’re demons. That’s all you need to know.”

“Is that your argument, then?” he says.

“What?”

“Your argument for staying, is that all? You’ll remove some of the espionage danger by willingly remaining confined and separate?”

“You can have someone guard me, or you can lock me in.”

“Caves don’t come equipped with doors.”

“Build a fence, see if I care.”

He considers you, and then settles back and shakes his head. “It’s amusing,” he concedes. “A little creative. But ultimately disappointing.”

“How so?”

“I gave you--what do you call it? I gave you the cheat codes to a yes. It was the last thing I said to you, so you’d remember. Nakia has a hidden agenda, and if I don’t know what’s going on within my own borders, how can I possibly--”

You dig into your pocket and hand over Nakia’s note. 

He unfolds it. “How do I know you didn’t write this yourself?”

“I can only read the Latin alphabet. I know--I could be lying. But just try reading it, at least.”

Brow furrowed, he begins to read. There’s a sincere, intense interest there, and then, a few lines down, something like shock. He glances up at you, catches you watching him avidly, and half-turns in the bench, so now you’re just looking at his broad shoulders. The temptation to touch the massive fur ruff is immense, but you are a professional adult woman, so instead you reach into your bag and pull out the nut mix.

Without turning round, M’Baku silently reaches back. You pour some nuts into his hand, and seconds later, the room is just paper rustling and people munching.

“Why didn’t you show me this first?” he says, out of nowhere.

You swallow. “I wanted to see if I could persuade you on my own.”

He turns back around and tucks the note away in a slit in his shirt. Suddenly the flippancy you’ve been using to pretend everything is fine melts, everything else fades away, your heart is in your throat, and his dark eyes are unreadable. What if this doesn’t work? If Nakia can’t convince him, nobody can.

“All right,” he says.

You grip your bag, white-knuckled. “That’s a yes, isn’t it. It sounded like a yes.”

“I wish it were not. But it is indeed a yes.” It must be true, because his entire demeanor has changed. His lips are pressed in a thin line, his shoulders tense. Power and intent radiate from him. You try to stuff down your excitement, precisely because he looks so foreboding, but the joy keeps bubbling up anyway. Joy and something else.

“Stay here,” he growls, and as he strides out the door, the question remains: how can you go from snacking and arguing with him like he’s one of your undergrads to being genuinely chilled, almost frightened, and (admit it!) significantly attracted to him? It’s whiplash is what it is. That deep voice is to blame.

“Mfuneko!” you hear him shout, just outside the door. Then there’s a quiet conversation. You inch closer and closer to the door in order to overhear; even if you don’t understand any of the words, the tone of voice is clear. Mfuneko’s replies seem everyday at first, but soon they’re rising in incredulity, matched by M’Baku’s rising in barely restrained irritation, until finally M’Baku barks something, once. By the way Mfuneko murmurs after that, you guess he’s assenting. Then the door swings open and almost bowls you over.

“Well?” M’Baku says. “Come see the cave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your patience
> 
> next up: your first weeks at work


End file.
